He was seasick most of the time during the first four days of the voyage, for the first time in his life—the result, he supposed, of the potent drug that Sevier had administered. After that, he rallied, and began to be conscious of the bracing effect of the cool ocean breezes after hot Hongkong. But never did a voyage pass so slowly. He had been impatient in going to Bombay; he had fretted between Bombay and Hongkong, but now he walked the deck almost incessantly, and was always the first to look at the daily record of the ship’s run posted at noon in the saloon. He had never sailed the Pacific before, nor imagined that it was so wide.
CHAPTER XIV. THE CLUE FOUND
But twenty days cannot stretch to infinity, even at sea. The Peru entered the Golden Gate early in the forenoon on the 9th of August, and Elliott, having no baggage to worry him, hurried at once to the offices of the Eastern Mail Steamship Company.
He waited anxiously while a youthful clerk flipped over the letters and telegrams in the rack, but English honesty was vindicated. There were two brown cable messages for him, and he ripped them open nervously. The first was from Henninger. It had been forwarded from Hongkong, and read:
“Will search. Come Zanzibar immediately.”
This was not what he wanted, but the second proved to be from Margaret, saying:
“Sailing twenty-eighth, steamer Imperial.”
Elliott felt as if a mighty weight had been heaved off his breast. Margaret must be then at sea, but her passage would be longer than his own. The ships of the Imperial line called at Yokohama and Honolulu, and on investigation he learned that the steamer Imperial was not due at San Francisco until the last day of August. He had nearly three weeks to wait, but of course he would wait for her. The treasure was a secondary issue just then, and then the question arose of how he was to meet her with the word of her father’s death.
For the actual fact he could feel but little regret. Laurie was not a man for this world; he was too high, or too low, as one pleased to regard it; and as a guardian for his daughter he was totally worthless. Sooner or later open disgrace was certain, and the grief would have been worse to Margaret than her father’s death. It was better that he had died when he did, with his halo untarnished—to his daughter’s eyes at least.
Elliott spent the next days in feverish unrest. He had nothing to do, and could not have done it if he had, and he half-longed for Margaret’s coming and half-dreaded it. He would have to tell her the whole story of the treasure and of the murder. How would she receive it? And would it, or would it not be taking an unfair advantage of her helplessness to tell her that he loved her and wished nothing so much as to protect her for the rest of her life?